The Korea Federation of Small and Medium Enterprises said it held an on-site talk on rationalizing regulations for small and medium-sized enterprises at the KBIZ Hall of the Korea Federation of Small and Medium Enterprises in Yeouido on the afternoon of the 1st.
The on-site talk was prepared to remove growth hurdles for small and medium-sized enterprises and microbusiness owners caused by outdated regulations and to push forward field-centered regulatory innovation. KBIZ delivered 100 regulatory rationalization tasks identified in the field to the government.
From the government, Prime Minister Kim Min-seok; Kim Yong-soo, Second Deputy Minister of the Office for Government Policy Coordination; Noh Yong-seok, First Vice Minister of the Ministry of SMEs and Startups; Ryu Je-myeong, Second Vice Minister of the Ministry of Science and ICT; Choi Eun-ok, Vice Minister of the Ministry of Education; Moon Sin-hak, Vice Minister of the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy; Geum Han-seung, First Vice Minister of the Ministry of Climate, Energy and Environment; and Ryu Hyeon-cheol, head of the Industrial Safety and Health Headquarters at the Ministry of Employment and Labor (MOEL), as well as the Fair Trade Commission, directors-general from regulation-related ministries of the Office for Government Policy Coordination, attended.
From the small and medium-sized enterprise community, Korea Federation of Small and Medium Enterprises Chairman Kim Ki-moon; Korea Specialty contractors association President Yun Hak-su; Korea Mechanical Equipment Construction Association President Jo In-ho; Korean Women Entrepreneurs Association President Park Chang-suk; Korea Federation of Micro Enterprise (KFME) President Song Chi-young; Korea Federation of SMEs Convergence President Kang Hwan-su; Korea Women Venture Association President Seong Mi-suk; and INNOBIZ Association President Jeong Gwang-cheon, along with heads of SME organizations and about 100 chairs of industry-specific SME cooperatives, attended.
On the day, the SME community delivered 100 regulatory rationalization tasks across 15 areas.
At the on-site roundtable, participants proposed seven items: ◇ introducing a prepayment system for overseas certification projects within the export voucher program ◇ improving the range of public software projects that corporations of different sizes can join ◇ easing rules on establishing contract departments for in-house research institutes of small and medium-sized enterprises ◇ reducing certification burdens for reused batteries to activate a resource-circulating economy ◇ excluding waste stone materials for aggregates from the category of waste ◇ making it mandatory to include industrial safety and health management costs in subcontracted projects ◇ easing restrictions on external capital contributions and overseas investments by corporate venture capital (CVC) of general holding companies.
Seven items were answered on site by the competent ministries, and answers on the remaining 93 will be sent by the Office for Government Policy Coordination after the roundtable.
KBIZ Chairman Kim Ki-moon said, "The world is now seeing increasingly fierce competition in AI and advanced industries amid U.S.-driven tariff hikes and changes in the trade and economic order," adding, "To foster many strong small firms in advanced industries, the regulatory approach must be drastically improved from positive to negative."
Kim added, "Every administration has called for regulatory reform, but unfortunately, interest waned toward the end of their term," and "as the government has emphasized regulatory reform first among the six structural reform areas, we ask that it push regulatory reform consistently to the end."